Stanco
by raulpschwarz
Summary: A bloody battle between the Brotherhood of Steel and tribals devastates the city of the Valley. In the weeks preceding the fight, hazard places a teacher in a position to discover a hidden chapter of this story.


**I**

The battle between the Brothers and the Tribes is a wound still too fresh in the memory of the inhabitants of the Valley. Though I am quite aware that no soul which saw such horrors would want reminiscence of these dreadful days, I intend to present here an account of an overlooked event pertaining to this sad, victorless skirmish. This event is by many unknown and by the rest ignored, out of fear and, perhaps, out of shame. Yet I believe it should come to light.

I could not allow myself to begin this story without a brief and impartial description of the movements that took place during the days of the battle. Anyone who was present, I believe, would accept my description: precisely because it is so superficial. But if, as I said, everyone remembers these events, why describe them? The first reason is a problem to which I dedicated nearly all of my life: literacy. Aside from certain people who consider the skill of reading their birthright, no one else knows—maybe not even these haughty men—what light the words of Eliot, Yeats and Whitman can shine on our stormy hearts. In fact, most will never know, for reading is now a relic of the past. Secondly, because writing is also a relic of the past and the sad battle should be recorded somewhere lest it happens again.

And now, after this _apologia pro libro suo_, to the description mentioned:

**II**

In the three or four months preceding the battle, the Brotherhood had wanted to obtain some items from one of the tribes west of the Valley. It is known that they sent at least two peaceful mission to attempt a retrieval without conflict. The first one met much unfriendliness and returned empty-handed; there might not have been more than a few words exchanged. The second one was what gave the Brothers _casus belli_: it did not return.

A few words on the geography of the region are in order. The Valley consists of an area pressed from the west and the east by two very tall and very steep rock walls. The Brothers had established a chapter south of the Valley, in an Army building right where the two walls begin to rise sharply. West of this point, there is a mountainous region where, at day, the sun burns constantly anything wandering through. Therefore the only route to the Tribes, which lies to the west, is traversing entirely the Valley itself, wherein lies an Old-world city mostly left untouched by the destructive action of the bombs, protected by the red, rocky walls. This city was then inhabited by many and lived relatively peacefully, without much contact with peoples outside the great walls, except for the occasional trade caravans which passed through. Indeed, there was no reason for contact: the ground near the two mouths of the Valley is quite fertile and there was an Old well in the city. Exiting the Valley and travelling a few more miles in the direction of the tribes, that is, southwest, going around one of the rocks, there is (or was, I cannot tell what has happened since then) a small settlement which quickly took to aiding the Brothers in return for some specific Old-world equipment.

When the second mission did not return on time, Brotherhood scouts set out to follow the mission's planned route. In the Valley no one they asked had seen their soldiers. In the settlement past the Valley, they _had_ seen it. It must have been that the Brothers deduced that the Tribes hid in the Valley with the aid of its inhabitants – or perhaps the Brotherhood did not care whether the people helped them or not and considered it a crime to hide enemies, with or without knowledge. As such, in the course of three weeks, the Brothers assembled, with aid from other chapters, a small but very well equipped army in order to attack the Tribes.

It is a custom to refer to the people west of the Valley as the Tribes; I incur in this for brevity, though I could not disagree more. Most people think of the Tribes as a unified group, and that the battle between them and the Brotherhood was a battle between two factions. This could not be farther from the truth. The Tribes are, naturally, a group of tribes; but their sole union is one of region, that is, west of the Valley, more or less close to the edge of the western wall. I have become acquainted with some of the widows of the Tribes and can confirm that they could not be more varied. Nevertheless they held stable and mostly friendly relations towards one another. I could check that some of them speak diverging dialects and hold quite different customs. In the end, they are not so much a unified group as a motley of peoples. In fact, only one of these tribes is native to the region, all others came from God knows where in search of fertile soil, which they found here. The people of the Valley hardly ever made contact with any of the tribes and, conversely, neither did the Tribes. One must mention here as well that these are tribes in their way of living; yet they are not like those near C. or Reno, whose only mean of defense is a spear or a knife: they possess firearms, explosives, and are skilled in their use.

Despite the amassing of soldiers at the Valley chapter being quite threatening, the Tribes prepared themselves an army and attempted to surprise the Brothers. The latters were waiting for them in the city, however, and so the battle began. For three days they fought. And in their fight they brought down many buildings in the city, killed most of its dwellers, destroyed any means of survival, including the Old-world well, and—though no one wants to remember, it must be said—violated women. It is not sure what cause the fight to end: both sides could have fought at least one day more, everyone knows. What is known is that there seemed to be no victor. Both sides lost many men, the Tribes could not force the Brothers to leave, and the Brothers could not obtain anything from the Tribes. To this day both lie on the same place, with a blood-painted graveyard between them. They watch each other stubbornly and resentfully like children after breaking a toy from pulling at each end.

**III**

Here I begin my account. It starts a few days after the Brotherhood began forming its army, in the small settlement near the Valley, on the way to the Tribes. By the way, this little place is called, no one outside is sure why, Stanco. As I mention before, my vocation in this scorched Earth has been to spread literacy among people. A few weeks before the skirmish, I was giving lessons to street children and orphans in the Valley and, after one of my classes, a woman approached me. In my time there, I could get acquainted with the diversity of people living in the Valley and the Tribes: she was clearly from neither. She offered me a sizable sum and lodge to teach at Stanco. I had not yet finished my task at the Valley but still I went. Do not judge, dear reader, despite charity filling one's soul to the brim with joy, it does not fill one's stomach; and, after all, I _intended_ to come back. Thus I arrived at the little village, as proposed.

Stanco is very small. It consists of no more than a dozen houses, quite decently sized, three buildings, the larger of which resembled a warehouse without any windows; the middle one, an indoor theater, with many windows; and the smaller one, with a large entrance from which one could see many items on shelves; aside from these constructions, the only other one was a farm house. They all were plain in aspect, unadorned. There was also a wide park, constructed post-war and looked-after, as was everything here. One does not see many parks nowadays, let alone one constructed after the bombs. The people there were suspicious of me, as was I of them: how could such a small town with apparently little to no valuable resources be doing so well?

The woman I'd met waited for me at the entrance of the settlement. She lead me straight to the theater-looking building and showed it to me: it was simply a spacious, well-lit room with some chairs and a stage. When I asked if they had many plays here she looked at me distrustfully at first, then relaxed and answered:

\- Not many, no. We mostly use it for debates.

\- Debates? What do you debate?

Here she seemed extremely mistrustful and said briskly:

\- In short, how to run the town. But all you need to know about this place is that this is where you will be teaching our children.

I could not keep myself from thinking that by _place_ she meant not only the building we were in but also the whole village.

\- Every morning at 9, beginning tomorrow, you will stand in the stage and teach some of our children how to read and write. We will pay you the quantity of - coins, as agreed, per class, until they have learned. How many days will it take you?

\- Well… I can't say… – She squinted her eyes at me – It depends on the class. How old are they? Do they know anything about reading? Do you have any books available? Because if they don't practice, they'll forget…

\- They are children. 5 to 12. The older ones know some words. We have some books. Any other questions?

This struck me far less as an invitation than as an abrupt end to the tour, so I said "no". She lead me out and in the direction of a house, near the entrance of the village, a farther away from the others. Near its door, a big man waited for us. The woman told me I would be staying at his house until my work was done and he would provide me with anything I needed, and then she left, without properly introducing us. I greeted the man and asked for his name. He answered "Erik" and did not seem any more amicable than the lady.

Erik's house could not have been his. In fact, it could not have been anyone's: there were no decorations whatsoever, nothing one could entertain oneself with, such as cards or a radio; moreover I could see that there was dust on the couch, despite its being well preserved. I had a strange feeling that I should make a run for the Valley after they'd fallen asleep, but my curiosity won me over and I stayed.

**IV**

Every day, during my stay, I moved strictly between Erik's house and the theater-classroom, and did not stop anywhere else. I did want to, but they looked askance at me constantly, so that I felt the desire to dig a hole and crawl into it rather than attempt any further contact with them. I should mention that an adult, one of three different ones, watched every class of mine, silently. The children, of which there were twelve, were not remarkable in their capacity to learn, though they were not deficient either. What was noteworthy in them was their tidiness and haughtiness: although I was their teacher, they still considered themselves my superiors, at least in birth, somehow. The people of Stanco spoke, in fact, an English closer to Old-world English than the one spoken in the most "refined" cities. This had caught my attention very early, as I enjoy studying our language very much, and it hinted that not only the present of this village is of a dubious nature, but also its past. "There must be," I thought to myself, "something they are concealing from me, possibly related to their means of living, that revealing would put them in danger. If this were not so, they seem as though they would vaunt it constantly."

After a first, and rather long, week of estrangement, I began to grow dearer to the children. The adults, with whom I never made acquaintance, kept me from researching the matter of the village further, at least at first. Everything I said was scrutinized by them, as in a dictatorship; and then I remembered the poets which hid messages in their poems to fool the censors, and so I devised a way to converse with the children's view of Stanco without the adult's knowledge. A child is innocently sincere: and that was how I reached my goal. They were sufficiently skilled to write short essays by then and so I had them write about their families, about their friends, and – not without arguing with the watcher for a bit – about their free time. The little glimpse I had at the general life in this small isolated village surprised me very much and I will lay here the most important facts:

The family structure is both simple and complicated. It is simple because it follows the norms of the Old world. It is complicated because, in essence, there is only _one_ family. It's as if this little village were the castle of a long-standing monarchy, which, they say, could be traced back to a pre-war family. Interestingly, none of the students mentioned the name itself of the family at all; I believe this is another secret of this place and they were explicitly instructed not to tell me. Indeed, from the uniformity of the description, repeated use of stilted and specific words, I could deduce that, from an early age, every child was heavily indoctrinated. Every dweller of this village was, to a larger or lesser extent, blood related to any other: and they took pride in this, in their secret name. They have no religion as we commonly known, but they certainly treat their heritage as the triabals do their myths.

Their society is even more interesting. The children are taught that they live in a capitalist Utopia. Not without some effort could I understand what this means: it's as though they live in a complete monopoly of goods, but, as I mentioned, they are all of the same family, and therefore everyone owns everything, which is to say, no one owns anything at all. Thus they say they live in a Utopian capitalist society, and really do believe that—at least the children do and the adults act as though they did—, while they live under a _de facto_ system which is the complete antipodal opposite of it: a _communist_ Utopia. To be more precise about how they live with respect to the trading of goods, whenever they need any "minor" or "basic" good, as they call it, they simply request it at the "store" (that's the smaller of the three buildings) and it is given to them, if available. Now there are "special" and "large" items, which request must be approved by the council. The council consists of _all_ adults in the village. They meet at the theater where I teach: those are the debates the woman mentioned. All inhabitants have exactly the same rights and weight in their vote. The children never stated – again, indoctrination – what it was that their parents did. They only said that, when they grow up, the will work at the lab. Two of them, though, said they would work at the farm. I could not discover what is in fact done at this lab, I could only figure, by elimination, that it must be the larger building with no windows.

After this description, it is important to stress that this was obtained through the children's view of the society they live in and, as such, is heavily influenced by the idealisms their parents impart to them. I have no doubts that the running of the town is not as clean as they described and that I am certain that there must be eventual quarrels, especially considering the high degree of intimacy between all of them.

**V**

My séance at Stanco was nearing an end. The woman approached me one day, after class, and reported, in her cold way, that _they_ were quite satisfied with the pupils' ability. I tried to argue, in earnest, that some more work could be done to ensure that they have learned well, after all, one cannot usually expect much from such a short course.

\- They can read our books quite well now. Your classes are no longer needed.

"So they have certain specific books, perhaps technical, that the children must understand," ran through my head.

\- Let me at least make a final examination to assess their -

\- We have assessed them _ourselves_. You have done your work. I can arrange someone to take you back to the Valley early tomorrow.

Before this tremendous resistance, I dropped all my hopes of further research. In this last sentence, there was a hint of a threat, so that I honestly feared for myself and thought it best to leave as she had ordered.

In my last night with Erik, I stepped outside, into the little unfenced backyard, ostensibly to smoke a cigarette, but really in the hopes that examining the silhouette of the large building under the full moon could lead to some conclusion about its end. In the dry bushes near the house I heard a rustle. I did not fear, for this is not a region with a significant population of geckos or any other dangerous animal, besides, nothing too large could hind behind the small bushes. Surprisingly, a young woman in a floral gown appeared from the hiding place. The moonlight showed a frightened face. She took her trembling finger slowly to her lips, telling me to stay quiet, and then bid me come closer, with desperate gestures.

\- I learned that you're setting to the Valley tomorrow. I want… No… I need to go with you. Please. Help me. – Her eyes began to water and this last plea was uttered with a broken voice.

\- Help you? What is it that happens here, after all? What do you have to run from?

\- I'll tell you everything, but you have to take me with you. We need to go now. Can we?

\- I cannot… I prefer not to have any reason for quarrel with the people here. Wouldn't they let you leave if you asked them?

\- No! – She said, almost screaming, and then looked around in panic, but everything around us was static – They won't let anyone out. And no one wants to. Except for me. I can't stay here: they will make me work in the lab, always in the lab, my entire life. This is not what I want. I couldn't bear it.

\- Listen, I can try to mediate a conversation. Perhaps they will listen to an outsider. I can show them that not everyone outside this place is a savage.

\- No… That's not… They can't let me out because they already taught me how… to do it.

\- Do what? – She hesitated and looked around her, wringing her fingers, for at least a minute.

\- How to make mor– the main drugs used to make those Hypos, or Stimpaks, like they call it. No one else know how to make it, and other similar drugs are not nearly as pure. This is the only thing that maintains Stanco. And no one know how to do anything else. They brought you here so that the children could read the Old books and learn how to do it more quickly. They only think about money. I don't understand, they talk and talk about money, but we are the living example that society can exist without money. And the worst is… it's who, why they sell it. It's not for medicine, they are not helping anyone. I know how to make the drug as they did in the Old world, and it's not how we do it: we increase the dosage of morphine extremely to make people addicted. We are monsters! I cannot be a part of this anymore! I just can't!

She began to sob uncontrollably and her whole body trembled. Nothing I said to calm her made any effect. Suddenly, however, she looked up at me and said:

\- If you can't do it for me, then do it for the poor people of the Valley. I need to warn them, but I will only tell you what it is if you take me with you.

\- I will not admit this blackmailing! Say it at once! What is it you know that concerns them?

\- I won't tell!

At this moment, I heard sounds from the house and turned around. Erik suddenly opened the door wide.

**VI**

Terrified, I looked fixedly at Erik, waiting for him to pounce first on her and then on _me_. He, instead, stared past me, in the direction of the girl. And when I turned back towards her, she was gone. He asked me, angrily, where was she, and I could only babble. Then he turned an electric lantern on (I was then so accustomed to strangeness of the village that I hardly remarked the rarity of this item) and flashed its light on the bushes: there was the girl. As he started marching towards her, I advanced a single step, to stop him from harming her, but could not move any further, so menacing this strong man seemed. She ran some yards but he still reached and grabbed her by the arm. She let out a cry and fell to the ground. He did not try to lift her but dragged her back to the house by the arm while her whole body tried to latch onto the rough ground, hitting rocks and bushes. All the while, she was screaming, and pleading, and screaming again, and sobbing. When he had reached the house, he threw her against the wall of the house and flashed the yellow light on her. She was covered in dust, bleeding on one side; on the other side, the arm had a large red bruise. The flowers in her dress were either torn or soaked in blood.

\- You told him about the ambush, didn't you? you little –.

She could only cry and her shudder, I believe she didn't even hear the question, but _I_ did. He slapped her face:

\- What did you tell him?

\- There's nothing to tell – said a familiar voice.

It was the woman's, the one who had hired me. She approached us, followed by a small group.

\- Take her inside, Erik – she said calmly.

He obeyed sharply: he lifted the still hysteric girl to his shoulder and took her inside. At this point, the woman's coldness hardly surprised me.

\- I don't know what Mary said to you – she addressed herself to me –, but you shouldn't pay it any mind. She is ill: her mind is failing and she only causes trouble. But Erik should have acted better, he is a brute. It's unfortunate you had to witness this scene. I hope you won't let it taint your image of our little town.

\- Well, I… perhaps I should be on my way.

\- Perhaps it's best really. I'll arrange a brahmin and a coachman for you.

**VII**

After they carried the young woman away from the house, I was granted access to my chambers. A man, whom I had seen only two or three times before, requested that I hand over all the children's writing. They treated me in a stilted, overly formal manner, which undoubtedly covered a threat. Evidently they wanted me to be gone as soon as possible, and I shared that wish, for I feared for myself after seeing how roughly that poor girl was treated. They handed me a bag of coins that I had no time, nor audacity, to count and I set off. In the haste, I even forgot a heap of sheets of paper, all empty and well-conserved, something not easy to find these days.

I arrived safely at the Valley, at last. The coachman and I did not exchange a single word. It was quite late already and the town was sleeping. I still managed to wake a few people and retake my old lodge. The next day, I tried to reflect on what had happened, what would happen to the girl, though I could not organize my thoughts. The one thing that kept resurfacing on my mind was the word _ambush_. I did not have any sense of what it could mean and my mind went down dark paths. Fearing for my safety, I left the Valley the very same day, not wanting to ever return to these parts. I went so far as to hire some protection, in case the people of Stanco came after me. Of course, I was sad to leave my eager students of the Valley but of what good, I thought to myself, is a dead teacher? I arrived in the little town of G. and took a little sabbatical before continuing my mission. I decided not to think any more about what had happened. For a few days, life was calm again. It was a relief to remember that most people do engage in conversation.

A week after my arrival, I learned of the events which occurred, and I described above, in the Valley. It was then that my mind could no longer repress the things I had seen. Inquiring about the motives for the skirmish lead me nowhere, all the information obtainable in the vicinity of G. was hearsay. I had given the issue up again when another traveler arrived at the little village I was in. The people said he was fleeing from the Valley. I went to him at once and learned that he was interviewed by the Brothers, prior to the battle, because he had acted as a mediator between the Tribes and the Valley. He informed me that the technology the Brothers wanted, and that the tribals purportedly had, was in some form related to healing drugs. As he told me this, I had a sort of realization, though I could not quite make it explicit. Meditating on the matter, though, I came to my present conclusions, which I now present:

**VIII**

The Brothers wanted to obtain a technology from the Tribes related to healing drugs. I have been in contact with many of these tribals and, though they were all quite intelligent, none of them had the scientific culture necessary to maintain such technology. In contrast, the young woman, in my last night at Stanco, had told me that precisely the knowledge necessary to produce the drugs was the village's only resource. Upon learning that the Brotherhood was scouting the region for said drugs, the people of Stanco had quickly reached out to them and, once they had earned their trust, offered deceitful information. In particular, they told the Brothers that it was the Tribes which were producing the drugs. Fearful that the Brothers would eventually find that the Tribes did not have what they wanted, Stanco attempted to increase the tension between the two factions through a staged act of hostility from the Tribes towards the Brothers; because tribals are seen as savages, mindless brutes, this would betray, falsely, their possession of the technology; because the Brotherhood injudiciously takes to arm at the first opportunity, a victorless battle was sure. There remained the issue of whence the village would produce the act of hostility. To the attentive reader, it is clear: the _ambush_ to which Erik referred. As I have mentioned, one of the peaceful missions sent by the Brothers did not return. Curiously, the generally accepted version of the events states that _the people of Stanco_ informed the Brothers that their mission did reach the town.* The villagers ambushed it and knew the Brotherhood would not be suspicious of their small settlement. All the bloodshed was but a Machiavellian trick to divert the tension towards the Valley thereby arranging all the major pieces against each other so as to fade them, the tiny, insignificant settlement on the background.

I leave any conclusions regarding this account to the reader. I only ask that, if any were to carry out some form of action, to please research the matter further than I have and not rely on my purely speculative narrative of the general events. That said, I do offer myself as a witness to the events which _I, myself,_ have experienced in the village of Stanco.

* It is true that this detail is, to some extent, hearsay and hence unreliable, but I included it in this form for brevity since, in any case, it can be deduced from the other known facts and the general spirit governing the Brotherhood's actions.


End file.
